POGO Response to F-35 Grounding
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Statement of Winslow Wheeler,
Director of the Project On Government Oversight's Center for Defense Information
"This is the second F-35 grounding this year. We should expect more; the program is only 30 percent through the easy, developmental -- or laboratory -- testing. The more realistic testing does not even start until 2017.
The F-35 is a huge problem because of its growing, already unaffordable, cost and its gigantically disappointing performance. That performance would be unacceptable even if the aircraft met its far too modest requirements, but it is not.
Sadly however, this presuably minor glitch will not mean the program is cancelled; it will not even mean it is delayed significantly. The Pentagon's current management is hooked on the airplane and refuses to admit it is a failure.
Meanwhile, as the F-35 gobbles up money at the rate of about $9 billion just in the 2013 DOD budget, the Pentagon plans to merely tweak spending for it while it decimates military readiness with huge cuts."
Founded in 1981, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is a nonpartisan independent watchdog that champions good government reforms. POGO’s investigations into corruption, misconduct, and conflicts of interest achieve a more effective, accountable, open, and ethical federal government.
